Customer since 2013
Municipality of Zevenaar
The re-divisional municipality of Zevenaar was faced with a major challenge: to structurally translate the college program into a budget cycle. Read here how this process went and how the LIAS Enterprise application contributed to it.
Translate college program into a budget cycle
The re-divisional municipality of Zevenaar faced a tough job: as a new municipality, structurally translate the college program into a budget cycle. But it worked. Below we provide insight into how this process went and how the LIAS Enterprise application contributed to it.
The municipalities of Rijnwaarden and Zevenaar will continue as the municipality of Zevenaar since 1 January 2018. This had far-reaching consequences for both the administration and the civil service organization. Because there was no joint historical awareness, there was a great challenge to deliver a completely new municipal program with a good financial foundation. Together with external consultant Hans Geurts of Incompany Quality, the new municipality took up the challenge.
College and organization together
The civil service organization of the municipality of Zevenaar took an active role. Several civil servants interviewed members of the board about the ambitions for the coming four years based on the coalition program. Staff and management then translated these ambitions into a draft municipal programme and the Framework Memorandum. The result was a realistic programme with broad support within the organization. The advantages of this method are
- A supported college program, also within the organization;
- A direct translation into the Framework Note;
- Realistic goals;
- Realistic translations of goals and activities;
- A good basis for the Planning & Control cycle for the coming years;
- The ability to monitor the college program through the regular P&C cycle.
"By designing the process and using LIAS as a tool, we managed to deliver the goal tree and documents at a quality level."
Hans Geurts - Strategic advisor Zevenaar municipality
Method
In order to go through the process in a reasonably short period of time and to make optimal use of the available knowledge, Zevenaar municipality organized two joint working meetings. Employees and managers of different departments together laid the foundation for the municipal programme and the Framework Memorandum. They did so per cluster (physical domain, social domain and operational management), and were supported by communication, strategic and financial advisors. "It was a relatively short but intensive process," says Hans Bosch, strategic advisor to the Municipality of Zevenaar. "In particular the last step, balancing the finances, required a lot of extra effort. That was to be expected, because our ambitions stretched a little further than the financial pole was long."
Facilitate your college as best you can
Hans: "My advice to other municipalities: make sure you have a programme for the board that is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-bound, ed.) and that lives up to the expectations of the organization and the board. This creates support and makes the required actions very concrete and the plans realistic. An application like LIAS is virtually indispensable for recording all this. It provides insight into the entire process and makes it easier to monitor progress."
Establish and facilitate the college program
In order to properly connect the college program and the goals of the municipality, the organization decided to process the information in LIAS Enterprise. This application records effects, goals and activities in an unambiguous way and makes them immediately visible to everyone. This makes it easy to monitor and report progress, but also to make adjustments where necessary.
External consultant Hans Geurts: "The plan was ambitious: to build a goal tree with goals and activities, and also to deliver two documents in a short time with input from the organization, management and board. And all this in a new and dynamic environment. New directors, managers and employees, not all of whom were familiar with LIAS. By designing the process and using LIAS as a tool, we managed to deliver the goal tree and documents at a high quality level."
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